Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the NCA for its operational leadership and its focus on tackling economic crime. Through collaborating with jurisdictions at risk, we make it harder for organised crime groups to target UK victims. The national fraud squad, run by the NCA’s national economic crime centre, and the City of London police, with 400 new officers by next year, have boosted the ability to tackle the highest-harm international offenders. We are working to deliver a workforce strategy to address retention challenges for fraud. This is important work that impacts on all our constituents and it is a priority area for this Government.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The Minister will know that online harm goes beyond fraud. It can impact people’s lives through suicide sites that signpost people to unregulated sites that lead them to a place none of us want to see them go to. He will know that the European Commission is currently investigating Facebook and Instagram. The United States is introducing the kids online safety Act, which, if it is passed by Congress, will make a huge impact. Why is it left to parents in the United Kingdom—in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, wherever they are—to take their own litigation against these big tech companies? Is it not time the Government did more?

[Dan Jarvis]

We are doing more, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this is a key priority for the Department, not least because 70% of fraud has an international element, particularly online. Approximately one in 18 adults were victims of fraud in the year ending March 2024. The noble Lord Hanson leads on this for the Department, and he and I are working closely with other Government Departments, including the Treasury and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. This is a priority and we need to do more.